After what had been quite a climb, the two arrived at the top of the enormous stair mountain. Before them was a magnificent castle-like structure encased in a transparent bubble.

Martha noticed, however, that there appeared to be no point of entry. The clear, glass walls seemed to her quite solid. Before she could bring this up, however, the Doctor was already working away, feeling along the sides and occasionally whipping out the Sonic Screwdriver, muttering all the while.

“If I could just remember how to get in…” he murmured, his brow furrowed. “Let’s see…what was it…three to the left and…six down? Or was it seven?”

Martha remained silent, knowing it best to keep her mouth shut when the Doctor was in this kind of state.

“Wait a second…here it is…aha!” the Doctor cried triumphantly. His thumb on what appeared to be the correct location, he scanned it with his Screwdriver.

“Welcome to the Time Lord Citadel,” said a female-sounding computer’s voice. “Please state your Identity.”

“The Doctor,” he replied confidently.

Nothing appeared to have changed. “Second request,” said the computer, “Please state your Identity.”

For a second Martha thought that the bubble was going to collapse as it gave a great shudder similar to that of an earthquake, but instead, a door-sized opening appeared to melt out of a small, rectangular section of the glass. The team let out a cry of triumph.

The Doctor had to duck in order to pass through the threshold. “Those other Time Lords,” he said, shaking his head, “they’re all so damn short…come on, Martha!”

Still grinning, Martha passed through the doorway. Almost immediately thereafter, several alarms began to shriek around them.

I do in fact have a Life Outside of the Internet. For instance, this past week I’ve been volunteering at my favorite theatre company (the one where Cabaret went on) to help out with the kids aged 8-11. It was really fun and pictures of the experience are up on my MySpace. Anyway, all that is explanatory of my absence.

That webcast thing may not be as frequent as I’d like. Perhaps only when I’m feeling charismatic.

And CAFEPRESS ARE STUPID, EVIL THINGS. They took down all of the products in my shop, due to the “Reference to Doctor Who”.

😐

There are THOUSANDS of Doctor Who items up on wordpress, for God’s sake. It’s where I got my University of Gallifrey shirt.

Martha took in a sharp breath of absolute horror at what surrounded her. “What…what happened?” she breathed, afraid of the answer.

“War,” the Doctor answered his eyes misty. “Simple as that. Come on. I…I want to see if anyone else is still–”

He swallowed the last word, turning away.

They roamed the Heart, looking for any sign of life whatsoever, but the chaos surrounding them seemed determined to tell them otherwise. Glass from broken shop windows littered what was left of the streets, which were pitted with massive craters, some of which were several meters wide. Martha shuddered to think what could be left inside, forgotten. Severed limbs? Bodies, even? She pushed these thoughts out of her mind with a grimace. Even the orange-gold glow that the rest of the planet had bathed in was gone, replaced by an eerie sort of gray haze.

But indeed there was life, for even amidst the catastrophe around them, there were still a pitiful few people up and walking. Some of them looked like Martha felt—lost, afraid, horrified. Others were simply in shock, moving in a zombielike trance. Yet still others were sobbing, wailing to the heavens above them in grief.

“My boy!” screamed another, wailing at the top of her lungs. “Exterminated, right in front of me! How could they?”

“We should go,” murmured the Doctor. Martha agreed, close to tears herself.

After a few moments of silence, the Doctor spoke. “It’s only about a mile to the citadel, now,” he said, “Let’s go.”

The following mile was much the same, only, Martha noticed, it was looking less and less chaotic as they went on.

“The Daleks,” the Doctor explained, “are moving very progressively. No, they don’t just blow it all up at once. A little bit…a little every day.”

A mile later, they were faced by the most massive stairwell Martha had ever seen. Well over a thousand steps, it led up to an even more massive, magnificent structure that was enclosed in what appeared to be an enormous glass dome.

“Now that,” said the Doctor with a touch of pride, “is the Citadel. And now we climb. Oh, there’s going to be quite a bit of climbing, I’m afraid. Well, no time to waste now. Allons-y!”

As an aside, he muttered to himself, “I just hope someone’s still up there…”

You really don’t have to buy anything, it’s true. But all profits (of which there are few, CafePress being FILTHY PROFIT WHORES) will go towards improving this site. For example, getting this website a .com domain instead of a .wordpress.com domain!

But there are some cool things there, like shirts and mugs and stuff. Check it out.

The other is a YouTube video channel.

But, at the time I am writing this, THE FIRST VLOG STILL HADN’T UPLOADED.[edit: channel now available here. It’s not fancy but eh. Please report any problems you have with the video!]

Damn wireless internet.

On a personal note, check out what Miss Zoe got in the mail!

This came inthis.
[I would have just put it into the blog post, but the pics were way too big. sorry!]
[Edit: Link fixed]

The Doctor had never appeared more afraid in all the time she’d known him, Martha thought, as they dashed madly through the jungle.

The cannons were almost unbearably loud and seemed only to get louder as they went on. Cries of fallen soldiers crashed against the trees, and an occasional stray bullet would zoom over their heads, barely missing them.

It felt as though they would never be able to stop when suddenly, the Doctor let out a cry of anguish, collapsing to the forest floor. Martha wheeled around and ran back to him. “Doctor!” she cried, “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

“Residual—GAAH!—spectral energy. Don’t worry, I should be fi—AGH!”

Then, his voice dropping to a feeble whisper, “Help…me…”

“How, Doctor?” Martha cried, “How can I help you?”

“I need you to—guh!—hand me that yellow…that yellow…”

He could no longer continue. “Hurry!” he managed to rasp, before fading out of consciousness.

Martha might not have been a medical expert in Time Lord biology, but she knew just by looking at her friend that she had to act fast. She frantically searched around her for anything yellow, remaining wary of the approaching fire. Finally, she came up with a flower that looked like a bright-yellow cross between a daffodil and a tiger lily. She rushed over to the Doctor.

“Hey, now—it’s alright—wake up—is this what you need?”

The Doctor feebly opened his eyes. Squinting at the flower for a moment, he seized it from Martha’s hand and began to gnaw on it viciously, as would a tiger. Through a mouthful of leaf, stem, and petal, he said, “Daligrilly. Life sustaining–”

Realizing he appeared rude, he swallowed. “Sorry…it’s a life-sustaining plant for the Time Lords. Only thing that can completely restore my energy short of regeneration. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Run!”

Maybe it was Martha’s imagination, but the gunfire surrounding them seemed less and less rapid with every passing minute. Either they were getting farther away from it or…she tried not to think too hard about the alternative. Surely the fewer people alive, the fewer people who could fire.

So lost in her thoughts was she that she failed to pay attention to her surroundings, which were suddenly changing.

“Martha,” the Doctor said hesitantly. When that failed to bring her back, he reached out and touched her shoulder. “Martha,” he said again. “Mmm?” she replied dazedly. She gasped in shock.

Around her was a city in utter chaos.

Structures that were once beautiful and intricate were crumbling before their eyes. A deathly silence lingered in the air, sending a chill down Martha’s spine.

“Martha!”cried the Doctor once more, “Listen to me! I need you to latch onto me and for the love of God don’t let go! Do you hear me?”

Martha ran over and latched her arms tightly around the Doctor’s torso. “Don’t…let…go…” hissed the Doctor through gritted teeth, as he concentrated with every ounce of strength he had on rooting himself to the floor of the TARDIS. “Emergency crash landing: imminent,” it informed them.

Martha shut her eyes firmly and tightened her grip around the Doctor, his two hearts beating in time with her own. It didn’t matter how much she loved or trusted the Doctor–it was times like this, when they were seconds from death, when she cursed herself for ever following him in the first place. It was a mad thing to do, really–to follow a man in a big blue box who claimed he could show her the universe. But there was something about him that she had trusted–something she couldn’t quite place. And so she had followed him. But where was she now? Spiraling at some ungodly speed towards a fiery death.

No, she thought, this is the Doctor we’re talking about, here. He’s not let us down yet. And I’m sure the TARDIS has seen worse.

As if he had read her thoughts, the Doctor suddenly spoke. “We’re going to be fine, Martha,” he whispered. “We’ve pulled through worse, this old box and me. Don’t worry.”Before Martha could respond, the TARDIS interjected, “Crash landing: 10 seconds.” It was the longest 10 seconds of her life. Holding on tighter than ever before, she braced herself for the crash. Red lights flashed all around her and the sirens screamed even louder.“Doctor,” she whispered, “there’s something I need to tell you, in case we don’t make it. I–”“Nonsense,” laughed the Doctor, “of course we’ll make it!”As he said those words, the TARDIS suddenly collided with the earth below with an ear-shattering bang. The Doctor, unable to focus any longer, collapsed forward, dragging Martha down with him.

“Martha? Are you alright?” asked the Doctor, staggering to his feet. He extended his hand. She took it.

“Yeah,” she said, “fine. Where are we?”

The Doctor threw open the doors of the TARDIS. Martha’s eyes opened wide.

Hey there, this is Zoë. Welcome to my little fan-fic blog. I started this up because all of the other Doctor Who fan-fic sites required you either to submit the story all at once or to wait some ungodly amount of time before you could submit anything. Either that or they had been shut down for some reason.

I’ll be using this blog to publish my fan fictions on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Each week, I’ll unveil a new chapter of the current fan fiction. Each story will vary in length, of course. And now, without further ado, I give you the first chapter of Return to Gallifrey!